A conventional process step in the manufacturing of integrated circuits and devices involves plating a conductive material on a semiconductor wafer or a workpiece surface. For example, an “electro chemical mechanical deposition” (ECMD) method can be used to achieve such a result. One goal of ECMD is to uniformly fill the holes and trenches on the wafer/workpiece surface with the conductive material while maintaining the planarity of the surface. The ECMD process is generally performed in a chamber specifically designed for such deposition. A more detailed description of the ECMD method and apparatus can be found in the co-pending U.S. application Ser. No. 09/201,929, entitled “Method and Apparatus For Electro Chemical Mechanical Deposition”, commonly owned by the assignee of the present invention.
If a conventional plating process is performed to deposit the conductive material, after performing such step in a deposition chamber, the workpiece may be transferred to another chamber for polishing (e.g., chemical mechanical polishing). In other instances, for example, ECMD, the deposition and polishing process can be performed using a dual depositing/polishing tool in a combined deposition/polishing chamber.
Regardless of which process used, the workpiece is next transferred to a rinsing/cleaning chamber after the deposition and/or polishing steps. A robotic arm/machine that lifts the workpiece by its edges from, for example, the deposition/polishing chamber to another horizontally configured cleaning chamber can perform this transfer process. Additionally, a workpiece cassette may be used to store the workpiece as it is being transferred from the deposition/polishing chamber to the cleaning chamber. The workpiece surface can then be cleaned using, for example, a spin, rinse, and dry process, as known in the art.
During such transfer of the workpiece from one chamber to another, contaminants such as particles may attach themselves on the workpiece surface because the workpiece is exposed to the external environment. The source of these contaminants may be the surrounding air, the processing facility, personnel, process chemicals, or the like. In some cases, exposing the workpiece to light between processing steps may not be desirable. The workpiece surface must be free of such contaminants; otherwise, the contaminants may affect device performance characteristics and may cause device failure to occur at faster rates than usual. Thus, such contaminants can result in defective chips, which results in lost revenues and low overall process yield for the manufacturer.
In the conventional method and apparatus described above, the rinsing/cleaning and deposition/polishing chambers are at least two separate horizontally configured chambers that are located apart from each other. Thus, workpieces are exposed to potential contaminants as they are transferred from one chamber to another. In addition, more physical space in a clean room is occupied when multiple chambers are required. This increases the costs for manufactures as they must use larger facilities in order to use such chambers.
Although, example here is given for carrying out the depositing/polishing and rinsing/cleaning processes, there are other types of processes that are being carried out in other horizontally configured chambers. These processes include etching or otherwise modifying the workpiece surface, depositing different materials on the workpiece surface, etc. Regardless of the specific processes that are being carried out in these conventional chambers, the costs associated to operate such chambers are nevertheless very high for the reasons mentioned above.
Therefore, there is a need for methods and apparatus for carrying out multiple processes on a workpiece using a vertically configured chamber without exposing the workpiece to the external environment. There is also a particular need for methods and apparatus for depositing/polishing the conductive material on the workpiece surface and then rinsing/cleaning such surface without exposing the workpiece to contaminants. Accordingly, the present invention provides a vertically configured containment chamber that can be used for carrying out different processes on the workpiece surface. The containment chamber of the present invention can be specifically used for both depositing/polishing the conductive material and rinsing/cleaning the workpiece surface. The present invention further provides a more cost effective, efficient, contaminant free methods and apparatus than those currently available.